A pub landlord who was viciously attacked at the weekend has decided he has had enough.

Alan Coleshill, 60, and his wife Marian, were already contemplating closing The Woodman in Joel Street, Eastcote, because of huge rent rises. They now say this attack has put the final nail in the coffin.

Mr Coleshill, who has a pacemaker, was beaten up by a group of men on Saturday in an unprovoked attack after they arrived late in the evening from another venue.

He said: "The girl at the bar served them and one of the men started a verbal confrontation with me. I said I was not in the position to enter into a conversation with him and told him he would have to come back in the day to talk about it.

"That was, apparently, 'being rude to him' - but I am not rude.

"I asked them to leave, and one of them suddenly launched himself at me, and so did the other two.

"When I got a couple of kicks in the head, I didn't think I was going to get up. The attack was pretty nasty but there's nothing broken, just bruises.

"We have never had anything like this before, and I have no idea why they did this.

"It was a Halloween party as well, so we had our own grandchildren here and a couple of other children. Our eight-year-old grandson was upstairs and he was petrified.

"I said to Marian, we are not going to be in this industry anymore.

"We had planned to close on November 30, but now we will use up the rest of the stock and will be gone in two weeks.

"We have a meeting with the pub company today (Wednesday), but for me, this is the final straw, and it's a real shame because 99.9 per cent of the people are brilliant. For every nasty person there are a thousand decent people.

"So many pubs have closed, so obviously you are going to get some scum coming in," he said.